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Garden Bridge Campaign

The proposed Garden Bridge across the Thames between the Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges was initially supposed to be a pleasant park and an additional way of crossing the river, paid for from private funds.

In spite of the on-going public sector austerity that continues to reduce funding for existing parks and public spaces and prevents the development of new pedestrian and cycling bridges where they are actually needed for Londoners, such as between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, more than £60MM was promised, on the instructions of then-Mayor Boris Johnson, by Transport for London (TfL) and the Treasury. In spite of this level of taxpayer support, the bridge will be a private space, closed at night and for at least eight weekends a year. The Garden Bridge Trust further looked to TfL to provide a public sector guaranteed for the maintenance of the bridge.

After nearly two years of sustained lobbying, and in the light of the Hodge Report into the public financing of the project, the current Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has refused this guarantee. So, what next for the Garden Bridge?

The Ramblers opposed the Garden Bridge

As the Observer editorial (24th May 2015) said "It requires much trust to think that the proposed Thames garden bridge will be an asset for Britain. You have to believe that within a confined area it can simultaneously be a haven of peace, useful transport infrastructure and an attraction with more visitors than Disneyland, that it will not push the overcrowding on London’s South Bank, already bad, beyond endurance and safety, and that the failure to provide lavatories will have no unfortunate consequences."

As reported in this further Observer article, the Ramblers in Inner London have opposed the building of the bridge since 2015. We have supported Thames Central Open Spaces in their campaign to prevent it. For more details, check out their web site at www.tcos.org.uk.

Block the existing views of St Pauls and the City that open up as walkers emerge from under Waterloo Bridge (see image from Thames Central Open Spaces).

Enclose currently public open space on both banks in order to provide access to a private space, frequently closed to the public, and in which 'acceptable' behaviour is set by an unelected, and unaccountable body.

Over time, these arguments, and those of the other organisations in the campaign became widely accepted, to the point that, when undertaking her review of the project, Margaret Hodge found that "the only people to express support for the Garden Bridge were the Trust itself, the Evening Standard and Boris Johnson".

What next for the Garden Bridge?

The Garden Bridge Trust have acknowledged that the construction costs of the bridge continue to escalate. They have struggled since summer 2016 to attract pledges for its construction and are at least £60m short. They have not negotiated access to either river bank. Without a guarantee for future maintenance, they cannot start construction and, if they don't start construction by the end of the year, planning permissions start to lapse. The project looks dead.

There's still a (slim) chance that the Garden Bridge Trust could revive the project by finding enough money to start construction and either a credible private sector guarantor of the maintenance costs or an endowment to cover it, negotiating access to the river banks, and commencing construction before December 2017. This looks unlikely, but we will continue to oppose the Bridge until the Trust admits that the project is over.

What next for the Ramblers' Campaign?

The Garden Bridge, a project that was supposed to be entirely privately funded has spent £46m of public money without building anything. By contrast, the TfL commissioned Millenium Bridge cost £18.2 million in 2000. Other proposals for footbridges elsewhere on the Thames are estimated to cost around £25 million. The Hodge Report raised stated that the processes for procuring the bridge " were not open, fair or competitive procurements". Other campaigners are campaigning for those responsible for these decisions to be held accountable.

We look forward to working with TfL, the Mayor, and the GLA in progressing projects that will really deliver benefits to Londoners and visitors who want to experience our great city on foot. In particular, we urge TfL to progress the proposed cycling and pedestrian bridge linking Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, and to make it a fantastic experience for all users.

According to a report in the Architect's Journal today, Garden Bridge finally sunk as Trust closes, the Garden Bridge Trust has finally thrown in the towel and admitted that this unpopular tourist attraction and blight on the Thames Path will not be built.

Having started as a proposed 'gift to London', to be paid for by private subscriptions, the project turned into a heavily guarded enclosure of public and publicly accessible space, paid for by taxpayers' (both London and national) money to create a tourist attraction in an area that already gets 22 million visits a year. No private money has been spent, but the proposers of the bridge have trousered in excess of £30M of public money and, until earlier this year, were expecting the taxpayer to underwrite the running costs of the bridge.

Opposition to this wasteful white Elephant has been led by Thames Central Open Spaces, organising community and national opposition. The Ramblers stood against the bridge because of its impact on the Thames Path national trail and the wasted opportunities it represented for using GLA resources to improve the walking environment in parts of London that actually need it. Like many successful campaigns it brought together a wide coalition of supporters - there can't be many campaigns where a Ramblers Area Chair has shared a platform with the Tax Payers Alliance - and built a wide-range of contacts for future campaigns.

The previous mayor (now Foreign Secretary) and the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer (now a trainee journalist at the Evening Standard) backed the bridge strongly, and continue to do so. The current mayor changed his position from opposition to support, then commissioned the Hodge Report which outlined many of the concerns of the campaigners over the commissioning, funding and desirability of the project. In April, Mayor Khan revoked all Mayoral and GLA support for the project.

With time running out on the planning permissions, and getting little traction in finding private funding for such a controversial project, the Garden Bridge Trust has admitted defeat today.

There will be time for a more lengthy post-mortem later but, in the meantime The Ramblers:

Thanks Thames Central Open Spaces for their dogged leadership of the campaign

Thanks the Mayor for seeing the bridge for what it was and cancelling it

Looks forward to working with TfL and the Walking and Cycling Commissioner on the development of bridges and other projects for active travel across the Thames where they are actually needed, such as the Rotherhithe-Canary Wharf bridge.

Inner London Ramblers welcomes report calling for no more public money for Garden Bridge

The conclusions of Margaret Hodge’s report into the Garden Bridge released today (7 April 2017) have been welcomed by the Inner London Ramblers. The group are now urging the Mayor to withdraw his own and Transport for London’s (TfL) support for the project.

Inner London Ramblers opposes the plans for the Garden Bridge due to the disruption it will cause for people using the Thames Path and open green spaces on both sides of the river.

The organisation, which is part of the Ramblers, believes there are more worthwhile opportunities to invest public money that would generate the proposed benefits of the Garden Bridge.

Last summer, the Inner London Ramblers presented TfL with its wish list for improvements to the strategic footpath network across the city. This includes completing the Thames Path, opening up more walking routes around London, improving the London Loop and Capital Ring walks and prioritising the improvement of parks, squares and urban green spaces.

Vice chair of Inner London Ramblers, Phil Marson said: "Plans for this bridge represent a waste of public money. There are far more cost effective ways to get people walking, such as investing in existing parks and urban green spaces and completing the Thames Path through London.

“Rather than providing more resources and guarantees to another private tourist attraction in central London, we’d like the Mayor and TfL to work with us, and other organisations, to improve conditions for people accessing the city on foot, for all Londoners and visitors alike.”

The Ramblers oppose the proposed construction of the Garden Bridge across the Thames because it promises to replace currently public space with guarded private space and destroy the amenity of, and views from, the Thames Path National Trail.

This section of the programme had a very short piece from Caroline Pidgeon AM opposing the bridge, a longer piece to camera from the bridge's designer, Thomas Heatherwick, and a long interview with the Chair of the Garden Bridge Trust's board of trustees, Mervyn King. The following interesting facts came out of the programme:

Several funders have pulled out of the project, taking £22m of promises with them.

The anticipated cost of the bridge has risen to £185m.

Delivery of the bridge has slipped to 2019.

When questioned about the large number of anonymous donors to the project (see right - image taken from tfl.gov.uk) Mervyn King assured the interviewer that all but five would be revealed when construction is finished. NB He didn't explain how the public could be satisfied, in advance of construction, that there are no conflicts of interest or dubious sources of funds in this list.

Taken along with Mayor Khan's promise not to spend any more GLA money on the project, and his admission that it might not be built, plus the facts that the Trust has secured neither the land at either end of the bridge, nor a guarantee for the on-going maintenance costs shows that this project is teetering on the edge of failing.

Now is the time to keep up the pressure:

Write to the Mayor to urge him to refuse to guarantee the maintenance costs of the bridge

Write to the Secretary of State for Transport, asking him to refuse to extend the Department of Transport's underwriting of the scheme

Get involved in the campaign against the bridge being run by Thames Central Open Spaces (http://www.tcos.org.uk/) - in particular, contribute to the crowd-funded legal challenge that's being mounted against the bridge.

The Ramblers opposes the proposed Garden Bridge because of its impact on existing green spaces and the Thames Path national trail. We do not believe that the benefits claimed for the bridge offset the damage to the walking environment caused by attracting more tourists to an already busy area and enclosing genuinely public space with a highly regulated, partially closed private tourist attraction. The public money wasted on this proposal could be far better spent on a myriad of projects across London.

You can read the report for yourself by following the link, above, but key points taken from the Summary include:

In its assessment of the business case, the Department (for Transport) concluded that there was a significant risk that the Bridge could represent poor value for money (Key Finding 2)

The Secretary of State formally directed his accounting officer to increase the Department’s pre-construction exposure for a limited period, citing wider benefits to the government’s agenda and the London economy (Key Finding 8)

When the Department made its decision to provide funding towards the Bridge, three of the four conditions set by the Chancellor as the basis on which the government would provide its funding had not been met (Key Finding 11)

There remains a significant risk that the project will not go ahead. (Key Finding 12)

"Your letter described the transport benefits of the Garden Bridge as quite limited, but I consider that the wider benefits to the government's agenda and to the London economy are significant, and not fully captured by the department's assessment.

"The Garden Bridge will become a key and iconic tourist attraction right in the heart of our capital city, helping the UK tourism industry to grow. It will also contribute to some of DfT's own policy objectives, including promoting walking and physical activity."

The area in which the Bridge is proposed already receives in excess of 20 million visitors a year. It's not at all clear why public money should be spent on attracting more tourists here.

If the Minister wants our advice, as the largest organisation in the country promoting walking for health and leisure, we can supply a long list of projects that would deliver those benefits to UK taxpayers more effectively than a short, crowded bridge in an area already well-served by transport links.

On Monday 16th May 2016, the Chair of the Inner London Ramblers, Phil Marson, was invited by Thames Central Open Spaces to join with MPs, GLA members, Lambeth councillors and representatives of other community and environmental organisations to address a public meeting called to ask the new London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to put a stop to the proposed 'Garden Bridge' over the Thames between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges.

Find out more about what happened at the meeting at the TCOS web site. While you are there, you can support the campaign by contributing to the campaign and legal fund, writing to the decision makers and getting involved in the campaign.

Inner London Ramblers oppose the bridge because of its impact on the Thames Path, because it involves the enclosure and privatisation of a currently public and freely accessible space, and because the public money being spent on it could be better spent improving the walking environment, delivering economic, health and environmental benefits to Londoners.

The bridge will have an immediate impact on the views from the Thames Path; the vista across the river that you get as you emerge from underneath Waterloo Bridge will be replaced by the underside of another bridge. The projected additional visitors combined with the narrowing of the embankment path will create another area as crowded and difficult to navigate as the cluster of tourist attractions near the London Eye and County Hall. This part of the Thames Path currently gets 20 million visitors a year. It doesn't need to attract any more.

The proposed bridge will replace a space on the South Bank that was leased to the Coin Street Builders on the condition that it remain open to the public and free from commercial activities with a massive building containing a cafe and gift shop, and access (including a 'queueing area') to the bridge. The pocket park on top of Temple Station on the North Bank will be similarly destroyed. The bridge will not be open at night and will close several weekends a year for private parties and will be patrolled by private security guards when it is open.

This enclosure is being paid for with our money - £20M has been lent on easy terms to the trust. Another £40M will be gifted, and running costs, planned to be in excess of £3M per annum will be guaranteed by TfL. This money could be much better spent enriching the places Londoners actually want to go, and encouraging visitors to got to parts of the City beyond the congested places they congregate in now. For example, a fraction of this money could be used to:

Improve and promote our strategic walking network - hundreds of miles of paths all over the city

Develop the Peckham Coal Line - the Garden Bridge is sometimes compared by its promoters with New York's High Line. The Peckham Coal Line, the imaginateive reuse of existing infrastructure to open up public spaces is much more in the spirit of the High Line

Implement the London National Park City - to encourage new green spaces and routes across London.

We therefore call on the new Mayor to halt this wasteful project now, Southwark Council to withdraw its support, and Coin Street Community Builders to recognise the views of its residents and neighbours, and their elected representatives at local council, assembly and parliament and refuse to lease the Asset of Community Value they have stewardship over to the Garden Bridge.